


Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Coffee

by CatrinaSL, RsCreighton



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Coffee, Coffee Shops, F/M, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Science, Scientist Wrangler Darcy Lewis, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7478676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatrinaSL/pseuds/CatrinaSL, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why is the coffee gone? Darcy and Clint set off on a search for caffeine that quickly becomes a wacky caper to cheer Jane up with science or possibly an attractive barista.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Words by CatrinaSL
> 
> Recording by Rose
> 
> Beta Services provided by Stella_Malodi

  
**Length:**   0:17:13  
**Format:**   MP3 & Streaming  


[ Mobile Streaming ](http://rscreighton.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/201608/%5bMCU%5d%20Matchmaker%20Matchmaker%20Make%20Me%20A%20Coffee.mp3)

[**Download File**](http://rscreighton.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/201608/%5bMCU%5d%20Matchmaker%20Matchmaker%20Make%20Me%20A%20Coffee.mp3)  
_(Right-Click, Save. THANK YOU, PARAKA! <3)_

Clint stared into the bottom of the empty canister. "Aw, coffee..." he whined. "No."

"I think the grocery order is supposed to show up later today," Bruce told him, serenely sipping tea at the dining room table.

Clint frowned into the canister's coffeeless depths. "That doesn't help me  _ now _ ," he said.

Darcy entered the kitchen and yanked the refrigerator door open. When she emerged with a  piece of cinnamon raisin swirl bread in her mouth, Clint was still trying to glower coffee into existence. 

Her eyes widened. "No," she breathed. "No  _ way _ ."

Clint tilted the canister so that she could see the truth for herself.

She groaned. "Is there any instant, at least?" she wanted to know.

Clint raised an eyebrow. "Blasphemy."

"Ooh!" She bounced as though her sudden brain wave had moved her physically. "I think I've got some of the fancy stuff squirreled away in the lab. Do you have a grinder?"

Clint shook his head, but where there was coffee, there was hope. "Maybe Tony has one. If not, we can find a mortar and pestle."

Darcy nodded eagerly. "Or a rock. I don't care."

"You could go out and buy some coffee," Bruce suggested, as he put his plate in the dishwasher. "There are plenty of shops around."

Darcy and Clint both looked at him like he'd spontaneously grown an extra head.

"This is no time for logic. Only coffee," Darcy told him.

Bruce carefully removed himself from the situation by leaving the room. Darcy grabbed Clint's arm and followed, and the three of them shared an elevator up to the lab.

"Good morning, Doctor Foster," Bruce greeted, as he walked past Jane to his work station.

"Doctor Banner," Jane returned, falsely pleasant.

Clint glanced at Darcy. "Is she okay?" he asked.

Darcy shrugged. "Be right back." She went into the lab and engaged the mini fridge in battle. Clint watched, amused, until she held a silver pouch over her head triumphantly.

She turned and waved it at him, grinning, and he smiled back.

"Hey, you want me to bring you some coffee later?" she asked Jane as she headed for the exit.

"Yeah, fine," Jane replied distractedly.

"Okay," Darcy said. She bit her lip, eyeing Jane with concern, then joined Clint at the door.

"How is she handling the whole 'Thor going back to Asgard' thing?" Clint asked her as the elevator took them back downstairs.

Darcy sighed. "Well..." She seemed reluctant to talk about it.

"He's only been gone a month, right?" he asked. "And he'll be back in a couple of weeks, won't he?"

"Yeah, except... Nobody really knows about it yet, but they sort of did one of those 'conscious uncoupling' things," Darcy said. "Basically, they broke up, and..." She sighed again. "Jane isn't letting herself be sad about it. I mean, yeah, there were lots of good reasons for them not to be together and everything, but just because it's logical to break up with your boyfriend doesn't mean that you don't get to have feelings about it."

Clint was silent for a moment. "That sucks."

Darcy nodded. "She just needs some time." The elevator doors opened. "And some coffee."

A resulting search of the common kitchen turned up one of those make-your-own-soda machines and some kind of beer brewing kit, but no coffee grinder.

"Maybe we could just eat the beans whole," Darcy suggested.

Clint rolled his eyes and took her out for coffee.

* * *

While they waited for their order, Darcy picked out a tiny handheld coffee grinder (for emergencies) and Clint bought another bag of beans to replenish Darcy's stash.

Clint downed over half his coffee the second he got his hands on it, and when he came up for air, he saw Darcy staring at a notebook on a nearby table. There was no one sitting in front of it, so Clint asked, "Are you keeping an eye on that for someone, or are you snooping?"

Darcy looked up, completely unashamed. "Snooping," she replied, saving the spot in the textbook on the table as she checked out the title. "I think Jane has this book."

Clint pointed at the backpack sitting on floor under the table, and the apron that was on top of it. "An employee?"

"Astrophysicist barista," she observed.

Clint considered the bottom of his very large but now very empty cup. "I'm going to need another one for the road," he said.

"Get Jane a small French Roast drip," she told him absently, stepping away from the table and heading for the door.

"Okay," Clint replied, a little puzzled.

When he joined Darcy outside the coffee shop, her eyes were full of mischief and she was grinning.

"I have a cunning plan," she told him.

Clint was reluctant. "This doesn't have to do with eating coffee beans, does it?" he asked.

Darcy shook her head, her eyes on the good looking guy who had just returned to his astrophysics homework. "Nope."

* * *

“Come on,” Darcy whined, tugging on Jane’s arm. “You haven’t left the lab in days.”

“Yes I have. The bathroom is all the way down the hall,” Jane argued.

“Fulfilling your basic needs does not count;” Darcy told her. For as tiny as she was, Jane was surprisingly immovable. “Just… admit that there is a sky. For an astrophysicist, you sure spend a lot of time indoors. Come outside with me for five minutes. We’ll grab coffee and I promise you can come right back.”

Jane attempted to shrug her off but was unsuccessful. “The last time you said that, you dragged me to a shop and forced me to buy clothes.”

Darcy sighed. “I’m not doing that this time. I have no ulterior you-seriously-need-a-new-outfit motives. I just want you to breathe the same air as the rest of us.”

“How long are you going to annoy me about this?” Jane wanted to know.

“How long are you going to hold out before giving in? Is this a twenty minutes thing, or more like four hours? Because I could honestly do this all day,” Darcy replied.

Jane rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she relented. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“I know that trick,” Darcy said, her gaze suspicious.

“I just want to shower and change,” Jane said.

Darcy gave her a once-over. “I will allow it.”

Jane put her notebook in a drawer nearby and headed for the elevator, shaking her head.

“Meet you downstairs!” Darcy called after her.

As soon as she was gone, Darcy pressed a finger to the comm in her ear. “Operation Caffeination is a go. I repeat: we are a go.”

* * *

Clint watched through a scope (sans rifle) from a roof down the block as Jane and Darcy entered the coffee shop. They bought drinks, milled around waiting for them, took them, and left after Darcy had unsuccessfully tried to convince Jane to relax at a table for a while.

He watched them walk away from the coffee shop and stood. "Hawkeye, headed back to the nest," he murmured into his comm, and saw Darcy smile when he said it.

By the time she got back to the common room, he was waiting for her on the couch. She flung herself down on the opposite one and pulled the comm out of her ear.

"That was fun," she said. "Well, not the whole 'dragging Jane out of the lab' part, but the super spy part."

"We can always do it again sometime," Clint told her as he tucked the equipment they'd used in the box where it belonged.

"Maybe next week?" Darcy suggested, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and bouncing on her toes. "Did you  _ see _ his face?"

Clint hadn't; he was supposed to have been watching Jane, but had ended up watching Darcy instead.

"Uh, no," he managed to say. "What about his face?"

"He totally recognized Jane," she said excitedly. "When he was handing over her latte, he tried to tell her he was a big fan of hers, but she wasn't really paying attention and he sort of mumbled it, so she completely missed it."

She seemed pleased with this turn of events. "Is that important?" Clint asked.

"Well, it means, at the very least, that he's into her. Now we just have to make Thursday afternoon coffee shop visits a thing, and give him a chance to turn her head."

Clint frowned. "You think he will?"

Darcy shrugged. "He's pretty enough. Jane only pulls her head out of her science for the really pretty ones. Plus, there's the science angle. Even if they don't make out, maybe someone with new ideas could distract her from the whole Thor thing."

There was something about this that Clint wasn't sure he liked. He didn’t know what exactly it was until he heard himself asking, "You think he's attractive?"

"Well... yeah. I mean, he's not really  _ my _ type, but that doesn't stop him from being good looking." 

After a moment, she added, "I prefer guys with more upper body strength. The lady would like two tickets to the gun show, please."

Clint laughed as Darcy broke out her best Blue Steel and flexed her arms in exaggerated bodybuilder poses.

* * *

Clint wasn't the best at on the spot covert surveillance; he saw better from a distance. But Darcy hadn't given him the time to get into position on a faraway rooftop. She'd called, and texted when he missed it. Her hurried voicemail and emoji-filled text communicated the fact that she and Jane were headed to the coffee shop "RIGHT NOW!!" and that he would have to rush to get there before them.

There was no time to shave, but Clint decided that stubble would lend to his disguise. He grabbed a baseball cap that Sam had left on an end table in the common room and tossed it on, barely making it to the coffee shop in time: Darcy and Jane walked in as he was collecting his drink. 

Clint chose a table by the door while they stood in line, and pretended to play with his phone while keeping his eyes on Astrophysicist Barista, who was at his usual table, studying.

He smiled when he saw Darcy gaze around the room, obviously looking for him (but not so obviously that Jane noticed). Her eyes lit up when she spotted a big guy in a dark hoodie and sunglasses at a table not far from where Clint was sitting. Darcy needed a few more super spy lessons; the hoodie/sunglasses combo was a bit too conspicuous for field work. She winked in his direction and then went back to pretending she hadn't made him (even though she actually hadn't). 

Clint hid another smile behind his coffee and watched Jane, who had gotten distracted by a notebook sitting on Astrophysicist Barista's table.

"Hey, you've got my coffee; this one's got your gross hazelnut stuff in it," Darcy said, reaching over to switch her cup with the one Jane was holding.

"Where did you get this?" Clint heard Jane ask, but she wasn't talking to Darcy. 

Astrophysicist Barista frowned when Jane grabbed his notebook and started babbling something about black holes and Einstein; Clint got a good look at his face when he realized that it was Jane and not some random crazy notebook thief.

Darcy was trying to calm her boss down, but Jane demanded to know the answer to her question.

"I... did those calculations myself," Astrophysicist Barista said finally. "I'm a student at CUNY."

Jane stared at him, and Darcy shot a worried glance at Not!Clint.

"I've been trying to connect these two things for six months," Jane said finally, sinking into a chair across from the bench where Astrophysicist Barista was sitting.

"Um... you're welcome?" Astrophysicist Barista said.

"Yeah okay," Darcy interrupted, taking the notebook from Jane and giving it back to its owner. "Jane, this is Astrophysicist Barista; Astrophysicist Barista, this is Jane." Now, can I have my latte?" She swapped the two drinks.

Astrophysicist Barista looked amused under the nervousness of meeting Jane. "Dominic Ortega," he said, reaching over the table to shake Jane's hand.

"Nice to meet you," Jane replied. “Doctor Jane Foster.”

Dominic blushed. "Yeah, I... know who you are."

"Great!" Darcy interjected. "I'm just gonna go..." She drew out the last word as she backed away from the table. 

Looking in Tall, Dark, and Hoodie's direction, she cocked her head at the exit as she headed for the door. Clint had to suppress a laugh when he stood: she looked between him and the guy she'd assumed was him, startling several other patrons in the process.

Jane and Dominic took no notice; they were already laughing together.

* * *

A week later, Clint was making coffee when Darcy came into the kitchen and ducked into the refrigerator for a piece of cinnamon raisin bread.

"Any updates I should know about?" he asked when she stepped back and shut the door.

"Nothing new," she replied from underneath the bread in her mouth. 

She'd texted him two days before that Dominic had come to visit the lab and Jane was trying to convince him to work for her during the summer. 

"She talked to him on the phone yesterday, and I guess he  _ wants _ to come work here, because of course, who wouldn't, but he's afraid of stepping on  _ my _ toes."

"Well that's..." Clint began.

Darcy nodded. "Totally sweet of him, I know. I told her to tell him that I'm just in charge of coffee and wacky hijinks and have nothing to do with the science." She shrugged. "Jane will talk him into it, no problem."

Clint let silence stretch out between them, not sure what else there was to say.

"Oh, hey, did I tell you? She's not moping around about Thor anymore. Whatever formula or thing Astrophysicist Barista did has her all excited about sciencing, and it's not a 'I must work to prevent sad' kind, it's a 'Darcy I can't possibly go to bed yet it's only 2 AM' type."

"That's good," Clint said.

"Yeah," Darcy agreed.

The coffee maker behind him beeped, and he poured himself and Darcy a cup.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem."

They sipped, the kitchen quiet around them.

"Hey Darcy?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind if... we hung out sometime?" Clint asked. "I mean, it was kinda fun, trying to set Jane up."

"It was," Darcy said. "We should totally do that. We can go get coffee."

"Coffee with no ulterior motives," Clint added.

He took a long drink of his coffee, then found Darcy staring up at him, blushing.

"What?"

"Do you  _ know _ ?" she asked.

"Know what?"

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, and she sighed. "Okay, I have a confession to make," she said, and opened the cupboard where Bruce kept all the tea in existence.

She emerged with an innocent-looking tin that allegedly held peach tea (with zing!), but when Darcy popped the top, all Clint could see was coffee.

"I sort of... wanted to go out for coffee with you, but I was too chicken to ask, so..."

"So you hid the coffee," Clint finished, shaking his head. "How could you, Darcy? That poor coffee." His words were disappointed, but he was smiling.

"It has suffered for my super huge mega crush," she admitted.

"Maybe someday it will forgive you," Clint said.

Darcy screwed up her face into an apprehensive but hopeful expression. "Will... you?" she asked.

"Will I forgive you for hiding coffee and inventing a caper that I agreed to help you with for no other reason than the fact that I could spend time with you?" He considered this for a moment. "Yeah, I think I will."

"You wanted to spend time with me?" Darcy asked.

Clint put his arm around her. "I do."

Darcy grinned. "Me too," she said. "I mean, I... want to spend time with you."

Clint smiled as Darcy blushed.

"Can you just kiss me so I can stop making a fool of myself when I open my mouth?" she requested.

So he did.

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com/post/175855388020/matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-coffee)
> 
> Tumblr: [catrinasl](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com)
> 
> Twitter: [@Catrina_SL](http://twitter.com/Catrina_SL)


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